The Ba‘athists successfully staged coups in Syria in March 1963 and in Iraq in July 1968.
Romodan admits that the ousted regimes in both countries had shown readiness to support Eritreans. However, before anything was done those regimes were ousted. Thus, Syria and Iraq started to extend their support from after the Ba‘athist takeovers. The ELF‘s most significant Middle Eastern backer was Syria. Three months after the Ba‘ath officers‘ coup an ELF office was opened in Damascus and Osman Saleh Sabbe began to make radio broadcasts attacking Ethiopian policies in Eritrea. In 1964 20 rifles were supplied to the ELF, which had 250 guerrillas. 527
Following the dissolution in 1961 of the union with Egypt in the United Arab Republic, Syria entered a period of intense competition with its erstwhile partner, and the steadfast support it offered the nationalists in Eritrea was partly motivated by this rivalry for regional influence. This contest was later to be joined by Iraq, when this country fell out with both Syria and Egypt. Additional motivations was provided by the pan-Arab vision of Ba‘ath ideology animating political forces in Syria and Iraq, which apparently came to
525 Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria; A Study of Post-War Arab Politics, 1946-1958, London, Oxford University Press, 1965, p.313.
526 Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett, Iraq Since 1958: From Revolution to Dictatorship, London, I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd Publishers, 1990, p.177.
527 Roy Pateman, Eritrea: Even the Stones are Burning, The Red Sea Press, Inc. 1990, p. 98
embrace Eritrea as well, as maps printed in Syria showed. The most important reason, however, was geopolitical one, with the mortal Arab-Israeli struggle at the center. The patronage of the United States drew Ethiopia inexorable into an ill-concealed alliance with Israel, and the latter was assumed a leading role in the war against Eritrean nationalism. In 1963, thirty Eritreans mostly students in Egypt, were sent to Syria for several months‘ military training. Among them was Romodan Mohammed Nur, a former student of Sabbe at Hrigigo, who was to become the secretary-general of the EPLF in the 1970s. They returned with arms and were sent into Barka region of Eritrea. Another group of about seventy trainees went to Syria, and more were to follow later. A total of approximately 300 ELF cadres trained in Syria with the span of five years (1963-1968).528 In fact Syria remained to be one of the major backers of the ELF and the Syrian military academy provides military training to its officers. 529 A high-level EPLF delegation headed by Ramadan Mohamed Nur, the Secretary General paid an official visit to the Syria. During their stay the delegation met with Muhamad Haydar, Arab Socialist Ba‘ath Party national command member and Chairman of the Foreign Relations Office on 8 February 1982, where Rommodan Mahamed Nur expressed appreciation on the stand of the Ba‘ath Party. Moreover, condemned the ‗Zionist annexation of Golan Heights‘ and voiced support for ‗Syria‘s steps to confront this plot and thwart all imperialist and Zionist schemes in the Arab region‘. 530
In July 1968, Ba‘ath Party army officers mounted a successful coup in Iraq; the new regime gave assistance to the ELF and trained officers. 531 Responding to Ethiopia‘s request to provide support for the peaceful settlement of the Eritrean problem the Soviet Union addressed several leaders of Arab countries. The Soviet Union has also made a presentation to the Iraqi government concerning the small transfers of Soviet-made weapons to the Eritrean separatists from Iraq through Sudan. 532 As the Iraqi Ba‘th began
528 Markakis, p.12 -
529 Africa Report Nov.-Dece. 1975 vol.20 No.6 The OAU and the Secession Issue, p.35
530 Liberation Published bi-monthly by the EPLF‘s central bureau of Foreign Relations, vol.1 No.1 January-April 1982, P.17.
531 Roy Pateman, Eritrea: Even the Stones are Burning, The Red Sea Press, Inc. 1990, p. 99
532 Soviet Foreign Ministry, Background Report on Soviet-Ethiopian Relations,
to move more openly away from the Soviet Union on a wider international level Soviet plea fell on deaf ears. In fact in May 1978 Iraq threatened to break off diplomatic relations if the Soviet Union continued to support the Ethiopian regime against the
‗fraternal‘ Eritrean secessionists.533 Iraq that had refused to allow the Soviet Union to transfer equipment from Iraq to the Horn or to use Iraq for airlift over-flights. Iraq-PRDY relations worsened considerably when Iraqi efforts to persuade Aden to end its cooperation with a non-Arab state in operations against fellow Arabs were futile and only drove a wedge between the two states. 534
In 1969, it (ELF) had also experienced a split into two factions; ELF-RC and EPLF. The former, based in Damascus, was supported by the radical regimes in Syria, Iraq and South Yemen, while the latter, based in Beirut, was backed by moderate Lebanon and the monarchy of King Idris in Libya. The division was partly ideological, partly personal, and partly over tactics. The disagreement between them broke out into fighting in 1972 with bitter feelings continuing thereafter. 535 Iraq has continued to give minimum assistance to Eritrean Liberation Front Revolutionary Command- a small body which split from the ELF and has no military presence in Eritrea. In 1989, Ethiopia opened diplomatic relations with Iraq for the first time since the days of emperor.536
The chapter six approaches the role of the Organization of African Unity, both as a source of legitimacy and part of the conflict. It will set out by tracing the inherent structural weaknesses of the continental organization, not with the intention of assessment, but debate how these weaknesses were shaped and manipulated by Ethiopia to seal off Eritrea diplomatically. However, the relevance of this chapter in this report is twofold. One, Africa‘s established fears for secessionism were effectively exploited by
3 April 1978 Secret. Single copy orig. No. 167/3 ag 03.IV.78 SOVIET-ETHIOPIAN RELATIONS (Reference) Diplomatic relations between the USSR and Ethiopia were established on 21 April 1943.
[Source: TsKhSD, f. 5, op. 75, d. 1175, ll. 24-32; translation by Svetlana Savran-skaya.]
533 Financial Times, 27 May 1978.
534 J. E. Peterson, The Two Yemens and the International Impact of Inter-Yemen Relations, Paper presented to conference on ―The Indian Ocean: Perspectives on a Strategic Arena‖ Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 14-16 October 1982, p. 29.
535 Madan M. Sauldie, ‗Super Power in the Horn of Africa‘ London, Oriental University Press, 1987. P.104
536 Roy Pateman, Eritrea: Even the Stones are Burning,The Red Sea Press, Inc. 1990, p. 99
Ethiopia to deny Eritrea access to the organization. Second, Ethiopia again used the organization as leverage against Arab and Islamic countries, when Eritrea reciprocated OAU‘s lack of political will by turning to the Middle Eastern countries for help. The OAU complicated the Eritrea-Ethiopia conflict, by taking it as Africa verses Arab and/or Christian Versus Islam. Further, this chapter will finally discuss Afro-Arab relations both within the OAU itself and between their respective organizations.
Chapter Six
OAU’s Fixation of Pandora’s Box and Eritrean Question
You do not exonerate colonialism because it is a black-on-black colonialism. And if the right to self-determination can be sacrificed for a higher cause of Pan-Africanism, then no African country has the right to independence.537
Abdurrahman M. Babu
Freedom has been subordinated to dominance, and the Eritreans have a right to self-determination. The Eritrean claim will one day prevail, first as a de facto military achievement and later as a state recognized by the OAU.538
George W. Shepherd, jr.
We demand an end to colonialism because domination of one people by another is wrong.539
Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia
537 A.M. Babu, The Eritrean Question in the Context of African Conflicts and Superpower Rivalries, in Lionel Cliffe and Basil Davidson (eds.), The Long Struggle of Eritrea for Independence and Constructive Peace, Trenton, NJ.: Red Sea Press Inc.,1988, p.50.
538 George W. Shepherd, jr. ― The Trampled Grass: Tributary States and Self-reliance in the Indian Ocean Zone of Peace‖ Praeger New York 1987. p. 68.
539 Summit Conference of Independent African States Proceedings of the summit conference of independent African States volume 1 section 2 Addis Ababa May 1963 Address Delivered by Haile Selassie at the Conference of Heads of African States and Governments. SUMMIT- CIAS/GEN/INF/3 P.8
6.1 Introduction
he establishment of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, the first such pan-continental institution, heralded the culmination of an older genre of a much wider pan-Black movement emotionally involved with ―pigmentational consciousness‖.540 This ideological constellation, known as ‗Pan-Africanism‘541 was initially linked to communities of African origin residing in North America and the Caribbean. Starting from the 1920s, however, Africans convinced that they should seek their own way towards unity and freedom, aided by the considerable impetus of the two world wars on African nationalism, dominated and geared the movement‘s objectives into a much direct continental one. Kuwame Nkrumah of Ghana set the precedence by hosting the All African Peoples Conference in Accra in 1958. Hence, ―After Second World War, the center of gravity of the pan-African movement shifted from the Americas to Africa.‖ 542
Africa on the eve of the founding conference was a divided continent where rival blocs emerged in the run-up to the establishment of the OAU. This rift was based upon differences of opinion and approach to major mainly colonial African issues. The founding conference was, thus eclipsed by these axes of division, that failure to set up the organization would have amount, in Haile Selassie‘s own words, to ―the inability of Africa‘s leaders to transcend local prejudice and individual differences…‖ 543 The emperor‘s grave desire to the establishment of the organization had promoted him to
540 The term is borrowed from Ali Mazrui, Towards a Pax Africana: A Study of Ideology and Ambition, Chicago, University of Chicago press, 1967.
541 Dov Ronen, The Quest for Self-Determination, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1979, P.35.
African quest for self-rule since the French Revolution may be divided into two dominant manifestations:
Pan-Africanism, formulated in the mid-nineteenth century and persisted as dominant manifestation until World War II, and decolonization, which began after World War I and continued until the 1960s and 1970s.
542 Domenico Mazzeo, (ed.) ‗African Regional organizations‘ The Organization of African Unity‘ by K.
Mathews, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1984. P. 50
543 Summit Conference of Independent African States Proceedings of the summit conference of independent African States volume 1 section 2 Addis Ababa May 1963 Address Delivered by Haile Selassie at the Conference of Heads of African States and Governments. SUMMIT- CIAS/GEN/INF/3 P.10
T
―play a key role in building the consensus‖. 544 hence, in the founding conference which he hosted pleaded the 30 Heads of State and Government present;
We cannot leave here without having created a single African organization... If we fail in this, we will have shirked our responsibility to Africa and to the people we lead. If we succeed, then, and only then, will we have justified our presence here.545
Despite their differences, the rival Casablanca and Monrovia blocs, as they were later called after the cities that had hosted their respective meetings, both were in favor of working for unity. Hence, they stroke a ‗compromise‘, which essentially fussed their differences into a single institutional structure. Therefore, the OAU owns its inherent strengths and weaknesses to this compromise. Its mixed record of success and failure and even its very survival were attributed to it. Indeed, by and large, the OAU‘s strength was in its very weakness, because the ‗compromise‘ was as much the reason for its survival as it was for its incapacity. As Domenico notes, these two factors (authority and survival) were inversely related, that survival dominated substance.
Over the years, there has arisen a tradition in the OAU by which differences between the African states are not allowed to wreck the unity of the organization. This has meant that the OAU has often taken virtually no action at all rather than press for an issue which could disrupt the unity of the continent. Some regard this kind of unity as of a dubious value.546
This structural weakness can even be inferred from the ―compromise solutions or postponement of issues that had characterized much of OAU‘s life.‖547 Hence, it follows as Legume, Zartman and Langdon in their concerted work state, the ―OAU‘s ability to
544 Before the conference six governments had been given the task of drafting a charter: Ethiopia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal, Ghana, and UAR.
545 Summit Conference of Independent African States Proceedings of the summit conference of independent African States volume 1 section 2 Addis Ababa May 1963 Address Delivered by Haile Selassie at the Conference of Heads of African States and Governments. SUMMIT- CIAS/GEN/INF/3 P.6
546 Domenico Mazzeo, (ed.) ‗African Regional organizations‘ The Organization of African Unity‘ by K.
Mathews, Cambridge university Press, Cambridge, 1984,Pp.62-63
547 Habte Selassie, Africa Today, 1988, p.63.
intervene in conflicts among its own members or within any one of its member states, was strictly limited.‖ 548 Undoubtedly, conflict and security issues had taken up so much of the organization‘s time and resources over the years. Yet, the OAU‘s roles in resolving these conflicts were curtained by lack of collective commitment on part of member countries. In fact ―Perhaps nowhere else is OAU‘s weakness more clearly exposed than in matters relating to the maintenance of peace and security in Africa.‖549 On the other hand, there are yet other arguments that take a stance just as far in the opposite direction.
One such contention comes from the International Peace Academy workshop on the OAU that pointed out in its final report ―The OAU was not set up to promote Africa‘s security requirements but was designed primarily to resolve the issue of Southern Africa on African terms.‖ 550 Perhaps it was from this departure that in 2001 the New Africa Journal applauded the OAU for having ―for nearly four decades successfully worked for the political liberation of Africa.‖551 In the passing of time the OAU‘s mandate included conflict resolution with the establishment of the defunct Mediation and Reconciliation Commission that reached climax in the abortive peace-keeping experience in Chad.552 Honestly, it is difficult to generalize the OAU‘s role in conflict resolution without a concrete analysis of each situation in its specificity, since each situation was typical of its own. Yet, though modest efforts were made, the OAU had long outlived its utility, that there was no such impotence that an organization‘s ―major merit lied in its continued existence‖.553 This was more pronounced given Eritrea‘s case where the organization was not only a complete failure but in the course of time became part of the conflict. ―
548 Legum, Zartman, Langdon and Lynn K. op. cit., p.38.
549 Domenico Mazzeo, (ed.) ‗African Regional organizations‘ The Organization of African Unity‘ by K.
Mathews, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1984. P. 66
550 A Report of the International Peace Academy, Report No. 19 new York 1984, A Workshop at Mohonk Mountain House, New York 18-20 November 1983. Nosakhare O. Obaseki (ed.) African Regional Security and the OAU‘S Role in the next Decade, Rapporteur‘s Report Summary of the Discussion by Hugh Hanning, p.5.
551 New Africa Journal, July/August 2001, Issue No. 198, P.13.
552 See Terry M. Mays, Africa‘s First Peacekeeping Operation: The OAU in Chad, 1981-1982, Westport, Praeger, 2002. See also Dean Pittman, The OAU and Chad, pp. 297-326 in Yassin El-Ayouty and William I. Zartman (ed.), The OAU After Twenty Years, A SAIS Study on Africa, New York, Praeger Publishers, 1984.
553 Domenico Mazzeo, (ed.) ‗African Regional organizations‘ The Organization of African Unity‘ by K.
Mathews, Cambridge university Press, Cambridge, 1984,Pp.62-63.